Dr Edwin Lee in his _Notice of Mentone_ (1862) is less explicit on this point. Speaking of the infrequency of frost, he says: ‘According to the account of an influential resident (M. de Montleon), it appears that during twenty-seven years the thermometer descended only three times below the freezing-point (in three successive winters).’ No one can doubt that so low a temperature as 32° is rarely reached. I have never seen it below 39°. But what visitors have to contend with is not a particularly low degree of cold according to the thermometer, but an occasional chilliness and wintry feeling, for which warm clothing is necessary in the open air, and a good fire becomes desirable within doors. The cold which is endured at times in a sitting-room may not be injurious to health, but it is exceedingly unpleasant, and greatly poisons the enjoyment of a wintering in the south. It may look like a heresy to speak with disrespect of wood fires. They answer well enough for a short time in the morning and evening; but are a poor expedient in days successively cold, wet, and boisterous. Movable grates with coal fires should therefore be supplied when wanted on occasions of this kind. It is perhaps too much to expect that hotel and pension keepers will voluntarily remedy the deficiency. They have a superstitious veneration for wood fires, and regard with traditional complacency the practice of supplying _paniers de bois_ at 2·50—the more the merrier, so far as their feelings are concerned. Cold weather is to them the opening of a brisk trade in timber. French visitors who do not know much about coal, and perhaps have a hatred of it, submit without murmuring to these venerable usages. The English, as it may be supposed, have their growl, and look on the whole thing as a downright imposition. It will not surprise me, therefore, to hear that the 2·50 usage gets into disrepute. On calling to see some acquaintances at the Hôtel du Pavillon on what happened to be a cold day, I found a coal fire of proper proportions in the salon de lecture, which I accepted as a step in the right direction. As regards those who wish to hire ready-furnished residences, they have the remedy in their own hands. I would recommend them to procure a few movable small fire-grates. If they cannot be procured on the spot (regarding which Willoughby may be consulted), they may be had from Paris. There is a store for the supply of such things under the arcade in front of the Palais-Royal. Coal is imported into Mentone, and can be had in any quantity. It is not Wallsend, but it will do. CHAPTER V.